15mm Ghaznavid Palace Ghulams

After a year and half painting 28mm AWI figures I thought I'd get stuck into one of the 15mm DBMM armies I have in the pile as a nice change of pace. After seeing Phil of Toy Soldiers Studio's beautiful Ghaznavid army (Toy Soldiers Studio) I was keen to make this my next project and started off with three command elements and six stands of Palace ghulams:

The Ghaznavid empire was centered on Ghazi in modern Afghanistan and covered large parts of Iran, Pakistan and north western India between 977 and 1186 AD. I wanted to put together an entire army of Forged in Battle figures and found these to be true 15mm figures rather than the larger 18mm often associated with other manufacturers. There is enough variety to cover most troop types in the list, but no dedicated general figures so it was a matter of picking a few commander-type figures from the cavalry packs and nominating them as generals:

Ghulam means slave or servant in Arabic, and the Ghaznavid ghulams were either mercenaries, prisoners of war or sometimes slaves who had been purchased as young boys. Many Turkish soldiers were employed in the ranks alongside Afghans and, later, Indian soldiers following seventeen individual campaigns over a fifty-four year period. The Palace ghulams were responsible for protecting the royal family and were the most elite and heavily armoured so again I selected the most appropriate-looking figures from the packs:

I splashed a bit more colour on these than I am planning to do with the regular ghulams, and attached some Little Big Men Studio banners to more easily distinguish them:

I didn't have enough of the banners I originally wanted to use and thought I'd have to purchase some more. I noticed in the course of doing so that they have gone up from £3.50 a year ago to £12 which is quite a jump in twelve months (although still worth the money at that price in my opinion), but a quick search in my stash of flags and transfers unearthed several sheets I had forgotten about and so I was able to apply them immediately without holding things up:

That's the first nine elements completed:

Next up will be fifteen elements of the regular ghulam.

15mm Dismounted Knights and Command

A quick post to highlight a few stands of dismounted knights and two mounted command stands. This represents the last of the Medieval Germans, so another army completed. First off the dismounted knights:

Two of these elements are actually English dismounted knights, but will be used interchangeably should I ever wish to dismount knights in a game. This is an expensive thing to do as the mounted knight elements cost a lot more than the foot, but dismounting allows them to fight as superior blade which can be useful:

The three pole armed elements are all German dismounted knights:

The shield transfers and banners are from Little Big Men Studios:

I also completed two command elements:

Easter was a bit of a disappointment in that after having caught COVID on Christmas Day, putting paid to any serious hobby time in the following two week break, I was really looking forward to a four-day break over the Easter holidays only for a bout of the flu to take hold late on Thursday and clear up just in time for work on Tuesday morning. At least it left my 285 days' accumulated sick leave untouched again.

That said, I did manage to make some progress with the last three regiments of Royalist ECW foot, over 150 figures completed. I'll post a few pictures of them soon, but might muster the completed German army for a quick parade first.

15mm Medieval German Knights and Spearmen

After having completed the Teutonic army, the next project in line is a 15mm German army. There is some crossover here in that the German knights can act as allies for Teutonic forces and vice versa, so it made sense to me to complete these next. First up, 20 elements of German knights:

The figures are again from Khurasan, with some shield designs, lance pennons and barding transfers from Little Big Men studios:

I find it difficult to come up with fresh livery ideas especially where sixty figures are involved, but the LBMS decals certainly helped and thankfully I have managed to make each figure look somewhat individual. I much prefer painting unformed troops however:

I also managed to compete sixteen elements of German spearmen. Given that these were raised as militia and fielded as a single force by particular cities I allowed myself the luxury of giving them all the same simple shield design:

These two completed units should now go a long way toward the completion of the German army:

I am still quite annoyed that I lost four what would have been completely uninterrupted days, which I had carefully engineered and which would have allowed me to make even more progress than this. It is nice however to return to the brushes and actually want to paint again, as I now hopefully overcome the last of COVID.

The final figure count for 2022 is 1099 foot and mounted figures with 243 horses, to give a total of 1342 figures in all. Probably not a bad result particularly as the year started with the completion of  a hundred and fifty or so 28mm French Napoleonic cavalry which were quite fiddly. I have still got just over a week of holidays left as well, in which I am hoping I'll be able to make up more ground.

All the best to everyone for a happy, safe and productive 2023.

15mm Teutonic Army Completed

Due to its small size the medieval Teutonic army is one of the quickest projects I have managed to complete, taking just under six weeks. There is something quite satisfying about embarking upon small projects like this when the end is already in sight. Even though it has been well documented over my previous four posts I thought I'd assemble the completed force for the sake of posterity:

A preponderance of white with the occasional splash of colour, but it looks quite effective to my eye:

As with most medieval armies, not much in the way of auxiliary troops with the main strike force being the knights. It will be interesting to see how they fare in their first outing which I am hoping should be January when our gaming resumes. Given the small size of the army to most opponents the tactic will be to strike fast and try to break through quickly before they become overwhelmed.

The total figure count for the project is 186 foot and mounted figures and 72 horses, for a total of 258 figures:

I am keen to get back to some 28mm Napoleonics but will run with the medieval theme for a bit longer and have a German army undercoated and on the painting table at the moment. There is an option to field German allies in the Teutonic list and, as they are cheaper troops, this will make sense for certain scenarios. I'm hoping I'll be able to complete this next army over the next six weeks but will see how that plays out given the usual run of Christmas functions which always seem to emerge this time of year.

15mm Medieval Teutonic Knights

It is always enjoyable starting a new project and I have been looking forward to commencing a 15mm Teutonic army, starting with fourteen elements of knights:

These are an expensive option in DBMM as they are rated superior and worth 15 points an element, and there is also an option to double-base them with German knights which takes them to a whopping 23 points an element. By comparison, most ordinary knights come in at 10 points an element and cavalry at 6 or 7 points, so it is quite easy to chew through the 400 point allocation in the games we normally play, at least apart from the time I had a brain fade and accidentally fielded a 500 point Frankish army which consequently went through the other side like a knife through butter, and which I still get frequently reminded about:

I decided therefore to base them as single 15 point elements, but will be making some sabot bases to add the German cavalry if I ever feel like straying into 23 point per element territory:

The figures are from Khurasan and are true 15mm, which puts them on the smaller side of figures. The banners are from Little Big Men Studios and, while medieval banners are large anyway, I found I was limited in what I could use from the banner sheet, as lance pennons at least:

There are also four command elements among the fourteen, with generals worth 35 points each or 43 points if double-based:

The upshot of this is that the Teutonic army will be a small and hopefully quick project:

Next up will be some twelve elements Dienende Bruder crossbow and spearmen, which will form the backbone of the foot for this army.

15mm Spanish Medieval Army Completed

I had originally hoped to have this army completed by the end of August, but effectively finished three weeks into September, so just over three and a half months. I enjoyed painting this army and they have ventured on to the field for a glorious win against some 100 Years War English, so I thought it time to organise a quick parade of the finished project:

The figures are all Khurasan, with the exception of the artillery which is from Essex Miniatures and the camp items which were purchased from Baueda:

I used a mixture of Little Big Men Studio and Pete's Flags designs for the knights pennants and some of the shield designs. Pete gave me his blessing to shrink them down a couple of sizes and even offered to do them for me which was extremely nice of him, but I took them to the local Officeworks and for a couple of dollars gained access to one of their high quality copiers:

I found this to be quite a manageable project, mainly because there were not masses of any one particular troop type, so the variety kept my interest levels up:

In total there are 498 figures, comprised of 105 horses and 393 foot and mounted figures:

Next up will be the last of the English longbowmen which will form the nucleus of that army, and then I'll stick with Medievals until Christmas and try to complete a Teutonic army which I have dragged out of the pile and started assembling, and am quite looking forward to getting stuck into.